Before we get to the past, here is the latest episode of the Sehwag vs Maxwell saga. This time around, Sehwag added RCB’s Liam Livingstone to the mix.
“I feel like Maxwell and Livingstone’s hunger is gone. Yeh yaha holiday manane aate hai, holiday banaakar chale jaate hain (they just come here for a holiday). They arrive, have their fun, and leave. There’s no visible desire to fight for the team,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz. “They just talk about winning but don’t perform. I have spent time with many overseas players who wanted to win the tournament. I don’t see that mindset in them,” recalling an example from his time at Punjab Kings, highlighting South African batter David Miller’s work ethic. “David Miller used to get turning pitches prepared in the Punjab nets. He would practise against spinners regularly to adapt to Indian conditions. He was focused on improving himself.”
In the past, Sehwag has called Maxwell a “10-crore cheerleader”. In 2020, Sehwag even accused Maxwell of being more interested in golf and drinking.
“He (Maxwell) doesn’t take pressure at all (In IPL). He is there only for enjoyment. He will do everything in the match, encourage players, roam around, dance other than scoring runs. As soon as the match is over, if he is getting free drinks, he will take that to his room or go to the room and have a lot of drinks,” he had then told Sony Network. “So, I never felt that he is that serious about the game. When he comes to the IPL, he is more serious about his golf than cricket. Because if you are that serious, the performance shows.”
According to Maxwell the bad blood between the two started in 2017 IPL, a tournament where incidentally it was Sehwag, as Punjab’s mentor, who conveyed to Maxwell that he was the captain.
“We discussed how the team would operate, and I thought we were all on the same page. How wrong I was,” Maxwell wrote in his book ‘Maxwell- the showman’ that was released in 2014. ‘”Our coach, J Arunkumar, was coming in for his first season, and it became clear to him that he was coach in name only, with Sehwag pulling the strings. When it came to selection, I thought it might be a good idea to bring the coaches into a WhatsApp group to make our decisions. Everyone agreed to this and shared their teams, with the exception of Sehwag. At the end of the process, he made it clear that he would pick the starting XI, end of story.”
The Australian goes on to add how this affected the franchise in a season where they finished fifth in the eight-team in the points table – narrowly missing out on the playoffs.
“Take poor old Ishant Sharma. At one point he was told not to bother coming to our game that day in Mumbai, having not been picked in a while. We had several other local bowlers, plus the Kiwi quick Matt Henry had just come into the side. Doing the right thing, Ishant did a gym session and came along anyway, bowling at full pace in the warm-up. Then Eoin Morgan was told that he would be a new inclusion that day, taking the last overseas player spot from Matt. Morgs protested that it wasn’t fair to drop Matt after only playing one game, so they rejigged again, left out Morgs, and both Henry and Ishant played.”
The tensions between the captain and the mentor reached a boiling point at the end of the season, when Maxwell volunteered to do the press conference after Punjab were rolled over by Rising Pune Supergiant for 73 in their last game. Instead, Sehwag took to the presser and unloaded on the captain as the ‘big disappointment’ of the season.
“I texted him to say how much it hurt to read those comments and added that he had lost a fan in me for the way he had conducted himself. Sehwag’s response was simple: “Don’t need fan like you.” We never spoke again,” Maxwell says. “I knew my time was at an end and told the owners as much: if Sehwag was going to stick around, they were making a mistake and not to bother with me. He only lasted one more season.”
When Sehwag made the 10-crore cheerleader remark, Maxwell told The West Australian: “”It’s ok. Viru is pretty outspoken with his dislike of me, and that’s fine. He’s allowed to say whatever he likes. He’s in the media for such statements, so that’s fine. I deal with that and move on, and take it with a grain of salt with Sehwag.”